Mark Riley 7NEWS Political Reporter

0:00Triple M Robby and Carly, now we did have the address to the nation from the Prime Minister last night. It was an interesting one. There's been various opinions and comments online about his little outtake of it. Now it's the Australian way that people want to do their bit. And there are simple ways that you can. You should go about your business and your life as normal. Enjoy your Easter. And if you're hitting the road, don't take more fuel than you need, just fill up like you normally would. All right, so Mark Riley from Canberra is going to give us a little bit more of a rundown. So seven-use political reporter, Mark Riley. Hello, how are you, mate? Good day, guys. Very well. Thank you very much. Now, Mark, can you share a bit more light on the PM's address? Because it did seem a little vague to some people. And that's because it was vague and those people got it right. And if I know, by shine a light, all you see is a puff of smoke because there wasn't a lot of a lot of detail in it. And that was kind of infuriating. It was basically as you heard in

1:04that clip, you know, a general message to people not to panic. Don't go crazy filling up Jerry Cairns full of petrol. Go about your Easter, do all those things as you normally would. But you know, just don't overfill. And if you can take public transport options in the next few weeks, do that. But I think the key part there that take out was that the next several months are going to be challenging. This isn't just something that's going to end, you know, when Donald Trump decides that the war and Iran's over. They've been oil facilities in Iran, you know, that from these major export terminals to refineries that have been completely destroyed. And that produces 20% of the world's oil. And that's going to take a long, long time to rebuild. So what we're filling at the moment is going to be around for a long time. And he just doesn't want the, you know, Australia to go crazy. But wasn't great amount of detail guys, which is what I was looking for on how we're going to secure petrol for Australia. How, you know, we're going to make sure

2:05that it's being distributed to the right places to the right people at the right price. Yeah. And I guess it was confusing from the fact that, and I guess we cast our minds back to COVID, usually when there's an address like this, it's pretty rare, but there's action points, I suppose. And it also, it also gave a different message to what WA is as well. So I think we're all looking at it and going, what's happening here? Yeah, I mean, that's the point, Robbie. And in it, anti-Albanese, you talked about the premieres and the, and the chief ministers and the territories being on the same page and all working together for, you know, the greater purpose of protecting Australia. Well, there's not much evidence of that because at the moment, now Roger Cook, your premier is the, it is the chair of the national cabinet group of, of premieres and chief ministers who are now trying to decide how to give back the hundreds of millions of dollars in extra GST they're getting from elevated fuel prices. So GST's 10% on every cent you spend at the bowser goes to the States. So they're raking in a lot of money. They're crimming in millions,

3:10hundreds of millions of D and they're talking about giving you back, but they just can't decide on how to do that. So in the meantime, they keep the money, motorists don't get it. What the, what the federal government wants, what Albanese wants is for a further reduction on the price of fuel because that'll be giving people some practical help as well as the exercise cut that's already come in over the next several weeks and months we now know that fuel prices are going to remain high. So, you know, Roger Cook's now decided to go his own way in one regard with those emergency powers that he's he's now putting the place which allow him to force the fuel companies to transparently show how they're distributing the fuel and who to to make sure the little players and the farmers and smaller operators aren't being gutted by the big guys because at the moment they're not revealing that information and they're and he's decided well that's that's not acceptable. I'm going to put in place these powers and allow me to force you to come to the table or that and once we we see what you're really doing we'll make decisions as a government on

4:12how to change that and prioritise the fuel delivery so it gets to where it needs to be. Mark, in your opinion, do you think that Roger Cook's play he will actually work because at the moment they are not participating at all? Yeah, I mean, with Will, he's, you know, he's saying to them, I will use these powers. You know, they are here. They're emergency powers. I declare this an emergency. I'm coming. I'm going to force you. So in the in a couple of ways it should work because it really it shames the the the oil companies. You know, the premier is saying listen, you need to do the right thing by the people here and as the as the head of the WA government, I'm going to make them sure you do. So, you know, there's quite a thread involved in that and I don't think your companies want that, you know, public relations disaster on their hands that they're doubting the people at a time of a fuel crisis. So I think it will work and I think that you will see that transparency. It's then up to the government because in the end, the government's going to be responsible for this, which is the important part to ensure that

5:14that supply gets to where it needs to be and gets there quickly. I was actually kind of surprised that we don't have a lot of that shipping information already like I thought coming in and out of ports. That would be public information, but is that not the case? Yeah, so you would imagine so. I mean, there may be some public information there. It's just not collated. It's not easy, easy to access, but there's also information about how it goes from the ports through the wholesale process and and gets out to those customers. And that is, you know, commercial and confidence, I guess, because they don't want to reveal to their competitors who they're selling to at what price to give away the game. I think that's, you know, that's probably their sensitivity is all companies. You know, they these are big, big companies that operate in the billions of dollars and a small change in their in their marketplace makes a lot of means a lot of money to them. So I suspect that's why they do it. But also, a lot of these things are just done because they can unless government step in and say, hey, hang on, this doesn't serve the purposes of the people

6:17and we represent the people. We demand transparency. We want to know what price has been paid as each part of the process here, where it's going to and to whom and where it's going from there, because that's important. Absolutely. Well, Mark, as the Prime Minister said, and as we touched on in this chart, it's going to be a very interesting couple of months ahead. I think we're getting used to unprecedented times at this point, but it's definitely unprecedented and it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, great pleasure, guys. Have a great day. Good on you, Mark. Mark Rowley, there's seven news political reporters. We continue here on Triple M Robby and Galley.